Slashdot videos: Now with more Slashdot!

View

Discuss

Share

We've improved Slashdot's video section; now you can view our video interviews, product close-ups and site visits with all the usual Slashdot options to comment, share, etc. No more walled garden! It's a work in progress -- we hope you'll check it out (Learn more about the recent updates).

An anonymous reader writes "Could you imagine being arrested for failing to return a movie you rented 9-years earlier? Well that's just what happened to one South Carolina woman. 'According to a Feb 13 arrest report, 27-year-old Kayla Finley rented Monster-in-Law in 2005 from now defunct video store Dalton video. The woman failed to return the video within the 72 hour rental limit, eventually leading up to her arrest 9 years later.'"

So you take something. The owner asks for it back. You refuse. You stole it.

The owner goes to a court to sue you to get it back, because the value is too low for a state prosecutor to care. You ignore the suit. The judge issues an arrest warrant at the request of the owner. The owner then politely sends you several certified letters impressing upon you your duty to resolve the issue. You ignore those letters, and in particular ignore an order of the court.

Later, you're arrested and forced to appear in court.

How is that thuggery? For one thing, the police aren't even involved, just the sheriff (an officer of the court). This is old school justice, where the person wronged has to do all the leg work in court to vidicate his rights. This is how things were done long before jack-booted police even existed.

Maybe you missed the part about how she was moving at the time, misplaced it and, because of the address change, never received any of the certified letters indicating the overdue return. It wasn't ignored or refused, she flat out didn't know.

This was an honest mistake. The only thing dishonest here are the assholes ruining this poor woman's life over a FUCKING FIVE DOLLAR VIDEO RENTAL.

This is bull. What's missing here is all sense of proportion. I'd love to have my former employers who owe me thousands of dollars in back pay thrown in jail. But it will never happen. Can bring a suit, and win it, but it doesn't matter, their companies are broke. Can't do anything more, like have a warrant issued. And there's this minor matter of the statue of limitations. Why wasn't this warrant voided after some appropriate time, like 7 years? Those former employers get off after only 4 years.

It cost us, the taxpayers, far more money than that video tape was worth to process this warrant. Justice is not served when actions taken in the name of justice cause far more damage and expense than they save and deter. Zero tolerance has its place, and this isn't it. That video rental company should never have had the power to sic the police on anyone, not for that. That they could have such power is all the more reason to pirate. And the police need to be reminded who their real bosses are: the public.

What you are advocating is a return to Debtors' Prison. THAT is how things used to be done, AC. If the item is of such a low value that the prosecutor and police don't want to bother apprehending you, then that judge should not have issued the bench warrant at all. He should have told the property owner to do what businesses usually do- write it off on taxes as a loss and sell it to a debt collector. You really want Comcast or Verizon throwing you in jail for a charge you supposedly owe that usually al

Pickens County deputy Hashe claims that Finley was at the sheriff's office on another matter when the outstanding warrant was discovered.

So neither guns nor cars where involved here, she was already at the sheriff's office for a different, unrelated matter. Btw, that's probably why it took so long to execute that warrant (which actually was issued the same year that she failed to return the movie): the matter was too trivial to send a squad car with armed officers to her home, and police basically ignored it.

It is pretty routine to ignore these types of warrants until they land in your face.

When they first received the warrant they may have rolled by her home, and if she was not there, put it in a pile of unlocated warrant suspects and log it in the computer. Now the next time she had an interaction with law enforcement, say a speeding ticket or a proof of insurance checkpoint, the warrant would pop up and she would be arrested and taken to court to clear the warrant.

If the issue was too trivial to pursue then it shouldn't have been warranted in the first place. America is too heavy handed with "justice" these days and it can be boiled down to the zero-tolerance (zero-thinking) bullshit. The judge should have told him to do the same thing businesses usually do- write it off on taxes as a loss and sell it to a credit collection agency.

So you excuse her theft then blame it on THE MAN keeping everyone under bootheels?

You aren't part of the problem, you are the entire problem.

Troll, troll, troll... punishment should be in proportion to the crime and filing arrest warrants over DVD or video-tape theft is bloody ridiculous. If she really lost the movie or whatever, the owners of the movie rental shop should have taken her to small claims court, gotten her sentenced to compensate them for the loss of the movie end of story.

This is the proper solution for this problem. One of the USA's greatest problems regarding law is that every single crime ends up being a felony these days. Being a felon carries some big penalties like not being able to own firearms or to vote. Now why would THE MAN want to do that hmm? Thanks for kicking that troll Savage! Friended:)

Man, the USA is weird. All this talk about freedom, but you allow, nay demand, to live in a police state. The police in Canada would not arrest you for an un-returned video no matter how long you had it because it is an obvious civil matter to be resolved by small claims court. It isn't theft, it is breach of contract. In Canada if you rent something and keep it too long it isn't theft. Yes, you have broken the law, and the owner of the video can take you to court, but you can't go to jail unless you fail t

> The police in Canada would not arrest you for an un-returned video no matter how long you had it because it is an obvious civil matter to be resolved by small claims court

IANAL but you can read about how that's not what happened.

> Yes, you have broken the law, and the owner of the video can take you to court, but you can't go to jail unless you fail to return the video after losing your small claims case, and then you would be going to jail for contempt, not theft.

There was no small claims case, because there was no appearance in a filed report of theft. Maybe it would have been thrown out for improper venue (meaning go to small claims), but more likely the fees associated with non-returning for 2 years passes the $500 (or whatever maximum for that area) that Small Claims can arbitrate. The warrant was likely for failure to appear and summary judgement of guilt. There isn't enough information here to say definitively, but deduction gives a couple possibilities. Warrants are issued to ensure other localities can arrest and hold regardless of charges (which may not even apply in the locality they are apprehended). That's part of the purpose of a warrant. It says "this person is wanted for a crime somewhere else, bring them back to us". Warrants sometimes describe what the crime was, but often do not because it can be complicated (failure to appear as a subpoena'd witness to testify about a civil case against a public defender being at a strip club instead of in court for a 3rd party contempt case, etc.)...Where the warrant applies is always present.

You seem amusingly critical for not recognizing the basic flow of events or even understanding the subtleties of the US justice system. Nobody spent tax money to chase her down, she ended up in a police station and was nabbed for a warrant. Nothing in the video cassette case seemed improper.

This is pretty common for issues with such a low monetary value that it's not worth the police resources. However, the warrant is kept on record, so if the person ever stumbles across the cops for another matter (as was the case here), the warrant will then be executed with minimal additional police resources used. Honestly, I think it's a hell of a lot better than paying for the salaries, gas, maintenance, etc of sending officers to execute warrants for every little thing.

No statute of limitations for most crimes in South Carolina. Failure to return rental property of a value of less than $2000 is a misdemeanor carrying up to a $1000 fine and/or 30 days in jail. Probably a few bonus months for failure to appear back in 2005. And she gets to forever in the future check that box "I have been convicted of a crime" and therefore no good jobs for her, and since it's an FDIC disqualifying crime (larceny), she's forever barred from having a job in the financial industry.

And you know what most people will have to say about that? "Well, she should have thought of that before she stole that videotape".

It is a feature of stories based on a dystopian future, and bykn some accounts (Shock Doctrine, I think?) of the present-day US, that the "common folk', you know, the ones with only 1 vote, are subject to increasing harsh punishments to stifle any hint of dissent, let alone revolution. Arresting for not returning DVDs is just a macabre progression from arresting for pot possession.

I'm sure in South Carolina, this will be only an human-interest story, not a cause of alarm or anything more.

Corporations get off with no punishment for far worse than illegally foreclosing homes! However your example is apt, since mortgages can be viewed as renting money (not technically however).

We had a rich man's son get off with no jail time for driving into 4 pedestrians, the judge said he suffered from "affluenza"! Other shocking examples are plenty in the US.

If lenders are not able to foreclose on collateral pledged as a condition of receiving a loan then you will find a great deal less credit made available in the economy, especially to working class and poor people. If you've ever been in a situation where you couldn't get credit or good credit anyway then you know how much that hurts financially. So no, making foreclosures harder is not good for society, at least in the long run. A few lucky people are helped but secretly the payday lenders, rent to own and

If lenders refuse to make markets, the government (or the Fed) should step in and make them. If private banks refuse to make mortgage loans, Fannie and Freddie should do it, because it's in the public interest, in the General Welfare. The Fed can loan them money at 0% so they can invest in T-bills at 3% and keep the loans rolling over forever.

The Fed can loan them money at 0% so they can invest in T-bills at 3% and keep the loans rolling over forever.

This is exactly the sort of crap that has to stop. I spent three years trying to refinance my higher interest loan because the banks would far rather invest the zero percent interest money they get from the government in T-bills. Of COURSE they would. I would love to have that deal, too. But the reason the government lends at zero percent is so that that money can be loaned to people and businesses. The government should look at any bank that has invested in T-Bills and raise their lending rate for that ba

The subprime lending crises was caused by banks talking first time buyers into mortgages on McMansions, rigging them to be nearly certain to blow up, and then fraudulently reselling the loans as AAA investments.

What they are supposed to do is make reasonable loans to first time buyers for starter homes. Had they actually done that, there would never have been a crisis.

When banks can borrow from the Fed at zero or close to zero percent interest and loan the money back to the government at between 3 and 4 percent interest on a 30 year T-Bill, which is basically guaranteed to be repaid, why should they make you a 30 year mortgage loan for basically the same interest but higher risk that you won't pay them back? The government, through the policies of the Federal Reserve, which have been holding down long term interest rates and flooding the banking system with liquidity, cr

IANAL but a decent lawyer should be able to make it go away....unless she admitted to it to whoever arrested her. I assume they would need a paper trail and witness testimony to convict. Nine years and a defunct business might make that difficult.

I agree that the police had to follow through on the outstanding warrant, but if she hasn't admitted it, and refuses to plead guilty, the prosecutor will be the one wasting money if he/she takes it any further.

Unfortunately for her, the arrest warrant was issued in 2005 and I don't think those expire. It's stupid that this originated with a tape rental, and I'm shocked that the video store pressed charges, but those tapes were worth over $100 and theft is theft.

What's more, the cops should figure out a way to get him at least a few menial jobs where he is paid in food so he can feed his family without having to resort to stealing.

Ah, so the police are social workers as well? They'll be glad to know that. Think about that for a moment. Yes, the police should have compassion towards people, but no, they aren't mommy, daddy, the rich uncle and everyone else in the extended family. They're police.

In this case, they did the absolute minimum needed. They arrested her, then let her go. She will probably end up with a small fine and a slap on the wrist - as befits the crime of stealing a VHS tape. Life goes on.

Apparently, however, there is little life left in Slashdot. Is this newsworthy at all? It's basically click bait. Come on guys, there are better articles in this in the Firehose.

I have had police let me go for being drunk or stoned in public before, simply because I wasn't causing problems and they have bigger fish to fry.

I've had the police let me go for jumping a red directly in front of a police car (not quite as retarded as it sounds honest). You, and I, could see that as the police prioritising their time and a good thing. The fact that it has been shown, again and again, that discretion isn't applied equally to different races and genders should make us reconsider that though. I shouldn't be getting an easier ride from law enforcement because I'm white middle class than someone who is black lower class, but 'discretion' encourages exactly that.

I thought the point of "the law" is that it tries to be. This is illegal. That isn't.

Of course someone somewhere ends up having to decide whether or not something is worth pursuing, and every case will have its own unique factors that won't be covered in the books. But I always thought the books themselves were pretty specific about what they do cover.

I have had police let me go for being drunk or stoned in public before

I'm going to have to agree at least partially with rhook on this one, based on a personal experience. Now I am not talking about regarding a warrant specifically, but just in a more general sense.
I am not proud of this, nor do I often advertise it, but I used to be an addict with a horrible heroin/opiate problem. And like many addicts, I stole all kinds of shit to feed my habit. I was caught once in the act of stealing a couple hundred dollars worth of 3DS cartridges from the wonderful retail behemoth tha

They *always* have it. If a judge issued a warrant for arrest for "treason" because someone drove across the judge's lawn, the police should very much refuse to honor that warrant. If the police don't do their job, someone remains free. If that person remaining free was supposed to be free (is innocent), then not doing their job is a good thing. That's the point of 3 branches in conflict. All 3 must agree for the government to be able to act against a person.

If the police refuse to enforce the law, what happens to them? You can't sue them for malpractice. The police were called and notified that a violent criminal made a specific threat (time and place) and the police refused to enforce the restraining order, and refused to respond to the crime of threats, but showed up to help clean up the body. Family sued, and the police won. The police are never "bound" to enforce the law, that I've seen. Since you seem to believe otherwise, can you explain better? Al

I returned a tape, that old bowling movie KingPins to a local place through the drop box. But they mailed me ordering me to pay for it. Needless to say I didn't pay it. Imagine if someone got you arrested for failure to do inventory on their part.

Also makes me wonder about those people who check out a library book and don't return it for like 50 years. What kind of late fees would they be looking at:P

I once had to pay $50 for two redbox DVDs which I did properly return. Apparently their machine didn't register it or got disconnected from the internet. They also said they audited the box and did not find the videos. However, their audit was incorrect, because I returned it. I don't do business with redbox anymore.

Yup... The blockbuster in Amarillo at the time insisted that I did not return the items. They were rude and tried to bill me full price for two DVDs. It was only when I insisted that they watch some security tapes from the night in question that clearly showed me returning the items did they stop harassing me. That was when Netflix was first starting in 1997..It was a no brainer to switch from Blockbuster to Netflix right then and there and I am still with Netflix... And people wonder why Blockbuster went out of business....:-0

The real problem is the artificial scarcity of money, which banks create out of thin air, and then restrict access to because they want attention and fear they have nothing to offer society except an arbitrary control of the money supply.

As long as the debt is actually correct, then throwing a dead beat dad in jail is fine with me. It's when you go to court to fix their $7500.00 mistake only to find out two months later they screwed up and set it to $75,000.00 instead of zero! So please don't assume that a person is a dead beat dad because one of the most inept and incompetent agencies in the government says so.

Yeah, in my state, they really screwed things up. A friend of mine got divorced about 10 years ago and his judgment from the judge says he is to pay X amount per month to his ex-wife for child support. So he does, every month. Then about 2 years ago, the state decides that all child support has to be funneled through a state agency. So, then he starts getting garnishments at work, payable to the state agency. Of course, since they are taking the money out of his paycheck, he can no longer afford to pay his ex-wife directly, which puts him in violation of the child custody agreement. But so far nobody is crying about that. His ex-wife is crying however, because she is used to getting paid by my friend on the first of the month. The amount is getting withdrawn from my friends check on the first, but doesn't get paid to his ex-wife until about 3 weeks later. So, in the mean time, he is spotting her money that he doesn't have to pay her.
Then, to make matters worse, the state decided that he owed about $15,000 in back child support, even though he has paid it every month faithfully. He is able to come up with cancelled checks for all but about 18 months. So they are forced to back down on the $15,000, but they insist that he pays the amount of those 18 months, even though he already has. Even his ex-wife says that he paid it, but the state doesn't believe them and insists that he pay them the 18 months.
So now, he has finally finished paying off the 18 months that he already paid, and one of his children is over 18 and no longer living with the ex-wife and no longer eligible for child support. The state agency does not allow you to pre-emptively file to get wage garnishments removed. You cannot do so until the day that the garnishment is no longer valid. However, once you file, there is a backlog (3 months and counting so far) before they process the removal of the garnishment. They continue to take money out of my friends check. They have, however, stopped making payments to his ex-wife since the child is no longer a minor and no longer in the household. They stopped that the day she turned 18 without anyone needing to file any paperwork.
Even crazier, the company we work for recently changed the company that does the payroll, so the state had to renew the now invalid garnishment with the new company in order to keep collecting the money that they are not entitled to and are not giving to the ex-wife.

That is not surprising. It's not like they couldn't have come up with $450 to pay their fines. They didn't want to pay it and gambled that they wouldn't get busted. And they did. At that time, they had to come up with twice what they would have had to pay for the fine. They gambled and lost.

Except you already agreed to a plan that legally spells out what happens when you fail to return it, charges and fines.Assuming that this is not the only rental story in the history of rental stores that does not have overdue-charges, she did not legally steal the movie, she just owed them thousands of dollars in late fees and interest.

At some point the issue of what's reasonable has to kick in. If she lost a VHS tape 9 years ago, and the store went under since then, (1) there's no victim, and (2) the replacement cost for the videotape is probably only a few dollars (check on eBay).

I'm just amazed that the magistrate that has to hear all such issues before they can book people didn't throw it out, since the issue is so flimsy. Perhaps they had to wait until the morning?

Now, if a magistrate signed off on throwing her in jail for not return

the replacement cost for the videotape is probably only a few dollars (check on eBay).

Well, that doesn't really make sense as a basis for damages, otherwise if somebody steals a $50k car and doesn't get caught for 15 years they can argue it is only worth $500. She didn't steal a 9-year-old video today, she stole it 9 years ago. She isn't paying restitution 9 years ago either.

It probably makes sense to fine her $100-200 or something like that. If she had paid $20 or something reasonable back when she lost the tape and this were an argument over whether the $50 late charge in the contract w

At some point the issue of what's reasonable has to kick in. If she lost a VHS tape 9 years ago, and the store went under since then, (1) there's no victim, and (2) the replacement cost for the videotape is probably only a few dollars

(1)Depends on how much revenue they lost due to that tape being tied up.
The victims are the shareholders --- probably they can still be repaid.
They need to be repaid in 2005 dollars adjusted for inflation, however; a ~20% increase on top reparations for what the value

1) The victim is whoever absorbed the assets of the company at its closing. They've lost the value of the tape.

2) Being a licensed rental copy, the replacement cost is in the range of a hundred dollars or more.

The basic issue is that the law doesn't get to be ignored just because the media can spin the story to sound trivial. If someone robbed a store of $100 worth of merchandise, had an arrest warrant issued at the time, then spent nine years on the run, would it still be unreasonable for them to be arrested today? At the most basic level, the purpose of law is to provide a consistent accounting of what behavior society does or does not approve of. If a magistrate chose to neglect an old outstanding arrest warrant, then there'd be something very wrong.

At some point the issue of what's reasonable has to kick in. If she lost a VHS tape 9 years ago, and the store went under since then, (1) there's no victim, and (2) the replacement cost for the videotape is probably only a few dollars (check on eBay).

While I broadly agree that reasonableness has to be taken into consideration, I don't think that it's fair to say that there's no victim here simply because the store went under. I'm pretty certain that the store owner (and his partners, if any) for one will disagree with you- he was angry enough to file a police report. Also, applying your logic, all murders are victimless crimes since their victims are dead, which statement I think many people will find hard to agree with.

Sure, if you go to court and get the debt discharged. If you just don't bother returning borrowed property it is just theft.

Actually, if you don't return borrowed, rented, or leased property, it is called conversion, not theft. The difference is that in the first case, you initially had the property legally in your possession, while in the case of theft, there is never legal possession. Conversion can occur without criminal intent as in, "I didn't return the library book, because I lost it." As with most things, laws vary widely by state. Since this is South Carolina, the woman will probably do hard time especially if she is

Arresting someone for theft under $10 ("Monster-In-Law" on DVD retails for about $5) seems to be a gross misuse of taxpayer dollars. A more efficient punishment would be to seize wages/tax refunds/etc. in the amount of the theft + some additional punitive amount.

Arresting someone for theft under $10 ("Monster-In-Law" on DVD retails for about $5) seems to be a gross misuse of taxpayer dollars. A more efficient punishment would be to seize wages/tax refunds/etc. in the amount of the theft + some additional punitive amount.

Jail is excessive but you need a disincentive to prevent people from breaking rental contracts (even though it was only a crappy DVD, it's still a rental contract), normally its just some additional amount as you've said.

In Australia they just send the debt to collectors and it goes on your credit history as a default that can make it hard to get credit or loans in the future.

Normally that's what happens in the US as well. Every place I've ever signed up for video rentals required me to give them a credit card and authorize them to charge me replacement costs plus a penalty specified in the contract. So typically she'd have been charged for the tape a few months after failing to return it. The idea of going to jail for losing a videotape rental is insane. I can't believe the video rental store would waste the money filing the charges over a single tape. Perhaps that sort of decision-making helped put them under?

It could have been the debt collectors - if they can't collect the debt, they'll file charges I think.

That would be my guess at what happened - the video store went to a debt collector, who eventually went to the police. Each step is probably standard practice, and the amount or initial reason for the debt was likely irrelevant at the end; it was probably policy to send all noncollectable debts past a certain age to the police.

It's kind of moot now that rental stores are pretty rare - but this actually isn't true. Under first sale doctrine in the US, you're allowed to rent out a DVD you own. If this wasn't true, rental places may never have taken off, as the studios would have preferred only to sell. They tried various license garbage to hinder renting, but it never held.

those privately owned complexes are only profitable beyond a certain level of occupation.

Tell that to the prisons in Arizona [huffingtonpost.com]. They have a guaranteed 100% occupancy rate - IE they get paid whether they have a prisoner or not. I'd LOVE to be paid for XXX prisoners that I don't actually have.

It's becoming a real issue with crime rates falling like a rock - states are having to 'scramble' to find enough prisoners to get their money's worth for those facilites. My opinion: Don't renew their contracts. Buy the facility, if it's worth it, for cheap some time later.

The cops have no discretion when a warrant is valid... particularly with a valid in-state warrant. When the warrant was issued, no one knew it would take 9 years for the woman to be tagged with it. Indeed, it would have been a greater waste of taxpayer resources to try to track her down over a $10 video and execute the warrant 9 years ago personally instead of by mail. Many petit larceny cases are treated like this.

Cost in man hours for the paperwork, arresting, jailing, court costs and so on... into the thousands, maybe even tens of thousands.

Seriously, what petulant, power-lording fuckwit sought this action?

If you knew anything about how law worked, she was jailed because a bench warrant was issued due to her lack of response on returning the video. The Judges give the warrants and the police carry them out. So, they have no choice but to arrest her because of the warrant, even if the charges seem lacking. She could of avoided all of this back when and choose not to. Now the video rental cost her a night in jail.

She took my car to get groceries one day and got a ticket in the parking lot, mistakenly thought it was dismissed, she moved and never received any summons or notices that her license was revoked, went to drive on a military base late at night 6 months later to visit a friend, they ran her license and charged her with like 4 crimes for trying to enter a military based with a suspended license (2003, they treated her like a terrorist, she spent all night locked up with the MP's), it went to court, no mercy,

See, chances are the charges about "stealing" the video will be dropped, because the Video Store company will probably not show up for a court date against her. But that didn't change that she had a bench warrant issued for her back when the store was still around.

What will happen is this: She will show up for the court date and the judge will dismiss the charges because of the age and that the video store is no longer around.

Had she bothered to take care of it back in the day, she would of gotten a fine and no jail time. But since she didn't, and they apparently don't have an age limit on those type of warrants, she got served the warrant when they found out she had one. And the warrants mean you get arrested and put in jail until you can go before a judge. So for her that was spending a night in jail for a video.

Also, as someone else pointed out, the statute of limitations would apply here. South Carolina has one of the shortest statute of limitations I've ever seen. It's only 3 years for both written and oral contracts.

The statute of limitations is the time limit to get a warrant. Once the warrant is issued, it lasts forever.